Sunday, you know, is laundry day. Actually, I need to clarify this. In our home, every day is laundry day. Every single day. With twins, it just works out that way. Our washer/dryer gets an above average workout, so much so that every few weeks, the Maytag repair man shows up at our door, asking if they're still running. Sad bastard's a drinker, too, and a heavy one at that. He's got breath that'll singe your nose hairs. But that's another story...Earlier in the day, my wife mentioned that the washer failed to drain/spin dry the last load, yet moving the dial to another section caused it to kick in. On my turn at the switch, things didn't go so well. After about 10 minutes of various attempts, I could not get the machine to do anything other then agitate. And if there is one thing I need less of in my life, it's agitation.
Ultimately, faced with the unlikely outcome of finding an open laundromat on a Sunday evening at 11pm, I took my wife's advice and attempted to wring out the clothes and see if 4 or 5 dryer cycles would get me through this situation.
As I wrung clothes out into the washer and moved them, item by item, to the dryer, I glanced at something that gave me an immediate idea at what might be the cause. As soon as I saw it, I remembered that washing machines have mechanism that stop certain activities if the lid is opened, typically the spinning cycle used when water is draining. The exact activities that were not working here, when the top was closed.
And how does the machine know it's closed? The switch on the side that's depressed when the lid comes down.
I grabbed a long machine screw within immediate reach, depressed the switch, and the machine kicked into gear. I closed the lid, and it did not. A minute or two of cleaning and adjusting, and we were back in business. It was just some gunk in the switch.
I love things like this. I love the puzzle solving, fixing something myself, not having to pay somebody else to come over and do it for me, and not having to lug a dripping basket of water soaked clothing on a fruitless search for an all night laundromat.